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🔌General Home Automation => Original ActiveHome => Topic started by: hkactive on June 07, 2006, 05:45:27 PM

Title: CM11A, ActiveHome, and Windows NT 4.0 sp6, lockup
Post by: hkactive on June 07, 2006, 05:45:27 PM
I am consistently having problems with the Active Home Software (version 1.42)  and Windows NT 4.0., the workstation version.

It loads and runs fine the first time after rebooting. But if I close the program along with the communications link and restart the program in the same session, Windows NT goes into slow motion and I have to reboot. If I restart the program it puts NT 4.0 into slow motion mode again. Like I have to wait 15 minutes for it to do something which usually takes less than half-a-second.

If I uninstall and reinstall the program it runs great the first time after I reboot. And then same problem reoccurs.

But having described the problem, has anybody had similiar problems that knows any tricks to get this Active Home version 1.42 running smoothly?

Any help would be appreciated.

Hank
Title: Re: CM11A, ActiveHome, and Windows NT 4.0 sp6, lockup
Post by: Dan Lawrence on June 07, 2006, 07:19:45 PM
Since it is already known that WinXP has Com Port problems with the CM11A, It seems logical that NT4 might have the same problem. XP is built on the NT kernel. AH is locking up since NT is loosing the CM11A, so the program can't communicate with the interface.

If your PC has USB ports, you should consoder switching to Active Home Pro and the CM15A USB interface. AHP can import your .x10 files from AH, so you won't loose your setup.
Title: Re: CM11A, ActiveHome, and Windows NT 4.0 sp6, lockup
Post by: hkactive on June 08, 2006, 06:39:30 PM
Actually, I was just trying to use the ActiveHome Program as a working tool to see what changes in the CM11a interface took place after programming Macros, House code to monitor, etc.

I was able to program the CM11a with VB6 in NT4 and the NT4 operating system has no problem interfacing with the CM11a on the serial port. I've got it turning lights on and off, dim, bright, and monitoring house codes.

But it appears that the original programmer(s) for ActiveHome ver 1.4x was using a Windows 9x programming environment and out of date Windows API's that didn't support the newer wide format APIs which NT supports, just the Ascii format. That is just a guess. But that appears to be the case. He definitely was not using Windows NT as a programming environment. Which is kind of odd, since most programmers prefer the stability of the NT operating system.

I tried it on Windows 98 and Active Home ver 1.42 works fine. But appreciate the feedback.

Hank